Charles Horioka — Interplay between familial & market support mechanisms for the elderly — Treasury seminar/webinar🍋

Thursday, 7 March @3:30pm NZDT — free of charge & open to all

»»»»»»»»»»»» Update: watch the video of Charles’ presentation

The Treasury is pleased to present the next seminar in our Productivity in a Changing World series. Prof. Charles Horioka of Kobe University will present on the nexus between long-term care insurance, formal care, informal care, and bequest: the case of Japan.

The seminar will take place on Thursday, 7 March 2024 from 3:30–5:00pm NZDT and will be a hybrid event.

You can register to attend in person at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, 2 The Terrace, Wellington, or online.

Bequests are strategically motivated

An ageing population raises questions about how elderly should be cared for, and about the interplay between familial and market support mechanisms. In this seminar, Professor Charles Horioka will share findings from his latest research on the nexus between long-term care insurance (LTCI), formal care, informal care, and bequests using micro data from Japan, where a public LTCI system was introduced in 2000.

His analysis is summarised in a paper co-authored with Emin Gahramanov (American University of Sharjah) and Xueli Tang (Deakin University). Drawing on data from the Japan Household Panel Survey on Consumer Preferences and Satisfaction (JHPS-CPS), the authors find that the introduction of a public long-term care insurance system reduces the likelihood of children providing care to their parents and reduces the likelihood of children receiving a bequest from their parents, implying that such bequests are strategically motivated. They further explored the policy implications of these findings.

About Charles Horioka

Charles Yuji Horioka was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in 1956 and received his B.A. degree magna cum laude with High Honors in Economics and his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.

He taught at the Kyoto University, Osaka University, Stanford University, Columbia University, the University of the Philippines, and the Asian Growth Research Institute before assuming his present position at Kobe University.

He is currently President of the Japanese Economic Association, is the immediate past President of the Society of Economics of the Household and is the President-elect of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.

His fields of specialty are household economics, the Japanese and Asian economies, macroeconomics, and international finance, and he has published more than 150 scholarly papers in such journals as the Economic Journal, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the International Economic Review, and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

His 1980 paper with Martin Feldstein on the Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle or Paradox is one of the most widely cited papers in economics.

In 1991, he received the Nakahara Prize of the Japanese Economic Association, which is given annually to the most outstanding Japanese economist under the age of 45.

Productivity in a changing world

New ideas, cutting-edge thinking, research and evidence are all critical for stimulating and informing our work at the Treasury. Our guest lecture series provides insights from the work of experts in New Zealand and internationally. These seminars are open to everyone, as we want to facilitate learning and debate on the important issues facing New Zealand.

Our current guest lectures theme — Productivity in a changing world — recognises that lifting our productivity performance continues to be central to improving New Zealanders’ wellbeing; and that we are facing this challenge in the context of significant economic, social and environmental shifts. These shifts will require major changes in our economy if we are to sustain and improve our economic and productivity performance.

By Tim Ng, Strategic Economic Advisor, NZ Treasury

For updates and our latest research visit https://www.treasury.govt.nz.

Caroline Face, Mt Cook. Dave Heatley